Chibi Arts: Shirahoshi

My general rule of thumb when it came to collecting One Piece figures was to stick to a certain line and make a decent collection of my favorite characters.  The Figuarts Zero I've been getting lately have been pretty amazing, but other lines do catch my eye from time to time.  Thus I decided to pick up a new kind of One Piece figure, the adorable Shirahoshi and Megalo from the Chibi Arts Line!

Her box isn't very large and it is super cutie cute, with a nice pink and light blue bubble theme.  It's very girly and sweet and I like it way more than I should.

This is eaxactly how she looks in the inner package and then straight out onto her plain white/pearly base.  Her worried expression is so cute! and very much to character.  Onto the pictures:

She is a large chibi character with an even larger base.  With her abundance of hair and her sitting/laying down pose, she sits fine without her base. I simply love her paint work, it has a lot of shine and depth without too much gradation or over embelishment. the details i really like to point out are her hairpiece, her sashes, and her strands of hair.  Her face is really nice as well.

Odd points would be the transparent ends of her bangs and the seams on her shoulders.  The ends of the hair look more dull than the bright feeling I believe they were going for, like most figures seem to be trying for lately.  Then the shoulder seams are really apparent, but go along her bikini top straps so it can be ignored.  Ah~ what a concerned face!

As darling, as she is by herself, the real draw to me was the tiny Megalo that came with her! One of my favorite sharks ever, I always pose her with him.  His paint work could be cleaner, but his sculpt is really nice.

This is how I keep the mermaid princess displayed! Her relieved/happy expression is my personal favorite.  It's also really neat how they included arms so she could lean on Megalo and place her other hand on her chest. They fit in nicely and really curve around megalo and herself quite well.

Time for cuteness overload! Also this is a nice comparison of sizes to one of the smallest Figuarts Zero figures: New world Chopper!  All in all I really have been enjoying my Shirahoshi and Meglo, and the Chibi Arts Line as a whole.  I have Luffy and Nami (need to do reviews on them at some point) and may get more in the future.  until then, I'm off~

Figuarts Zero: Film Z Monkey D. Luffy: Battle Clothes Version

I've pushed around some other shoots and reviews just so I could put this one up as soon as possible.  This is my long awaited Luffy: Film Z Battle Clothes Version!  I really wanted a Luffy for my collection (He is the main character after all), but I missed out on the earlier versions of him.  I was really pleased to see this one coming out, since I like this outfit on him.  His box is really small compared to earlier Figuart Zero's (7x4x3 inches) so he was nice and easy to ship:

It's a nice, tight little box with a stunning flame/gradient/gold film Z design.  It's always easier to ship smaller ones, but that also means he doesn't comes with any accessories that tend to make the other boxes larger. I really enjoyed getting this one.

 The base is worth noting here: They decided to go with a red base to fall in line with the rest of the films color scheme.  At first I wasn't sure how I would like this change (being so used to the black bases) but in person it's really quite wonderful.  It's a bright neon red (still transparent) with the Film Z logo and gold lettering (Still with the Name and "Dead or Alive" theme).  It really pops and looks great on my shelf, and honestly Luffy should have an awesome base, being the Captain anyway : )

He looks really good!  The sculpt and paint are just wonderful on this guy.  It's nice to finally have a Luffy to go with the rest of my Cast and a pretty BadAss one at that.  His pegs were probably some of the hardest for me to fit though (Doflamingo's pegs come to mind as well). So basically I will never get him off of this base just like Doflamingo, but thats OK considering I want to display him with it anyway.

The detailing on his pants and sash look great.  I love how you can even see his toenails on the feet, the whole sculpt is well done.

 

He is pretty powerful looking all around, and I really enjoy the swoop of his vest and sash. Basically i recommend this version to anyone looking for a Luffy figure, or is really into Luffy figures in General!

 

This is very much a true too character figure.  It captures the confidence in Luffy with his smirk and mimics his usual show of power with him grabbing his arm in anticipation of a battle. 

I've said before that certain characters look better either in 2d or 3d and Luffy always had more appeal to me in his 2d form.  This is one of the first Figuarts Zero's that I feel physically captures Luffy, with his face and hair and lean but muscular body. Sailing Again Luffy was pretty darn close, but I never had the chance to get him (and really I don't need too, now with this version).

 As much as I enjoy this version of Luffy, I'm not sure if I will pick up anymore from the Film Z line.  I just wanted a Bad Ass Luffy and this one met my expectations.  The other Film Z characters do look great, but I don't know them well enough to pick them up, since I'm the kind of collector that wants figures of the characters I like.  This Luffy came with a neat insert of the other Film Z versions that I think look pretty cool, so I thought I'd share:

Otherwise, that's all for now!  More posts about figures and collectables in the future, I have a lot of catching up to do after the holidays.